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Samples: High-Speed Shutter
Sample images of what can now be done with the ultra-high shutter speeds with high-speed flash sync. ---- =A Drop in a Bucket, in a Sink, I mean in SYNC!= These images were taken with the new high-speed shutter override option. 1/10,000 second, Manual mode, f/3.5, flash manual at lowest output, +2 diopter close-up lens, subject distance approx. 10 inches (25cm), room lights and lights above sink all turned on. Notice the greenish rectangular highlight in one of the drops. That is the fluorescent light over the sink. Giving these high-speed shots the appearance as if taken in available light alone. I really didn't spend any time learning to use this feature. Right after downloading Fingalo's Alpha build I popped it in the camera and headed to my kitchen sink to test it out. Some of these are within the first 5 shots taken. I got so enthralled I must have fired off another 40 more, then selected a few favorites from the bunch. These are just downsized images of the full frames, slightly cropped to get rid of some empty space around them so they look a little nicer. (I just did a hunt to see what the fastest shutter speeds are available on any other commerical digicams, the $2000-$20,000 ones go up to 1/8000 shutter speeds. And that's with the crippling limitation of using a focal-plane shutter so there's no high-speed flash sync. :-) ) On further investigation by others, it now appears that while the CCD electronic shutter timing is at (approximately?) 1/10,000th of a second duration, the flash is firing at speeds up to 1/60,000th of a second duration!! (see Dremel-drill speed test below) The CCD timing cutting out any blur from ambient lights and the flash freezing the motion. (Wow!) image:drop1.jpg I like this one, look at that way cool perfect ring floating on the surface. I've never seen a formation like that in any drop photos. :image:drop2.jpg This clearly shows the highlight from the fluoresscent lamp above the sink. The other images also catching the greenish fluorescent ting. Giving these photos that available-light quality. I like the way that the back out-of-focus splash-ring from the previous drop is being refocused into clarity by the suspended drop that's next to hit. :image:drop3.jpg I saw this one go by as I was taking shots and had hoped it would have turned out better. The drop still in shape but the bottom half already exploding beneath it. It's so hard to focus on running blurry water! Try it sometime. :-) :image:drop4.jpg Looks like the typical milk-drop high-speed flash image that we all grew up with in photography and high-school science textbooks showing how the invention of xenon flash could show us things we never knew. And a fitting closure to this sequence. ---- =Dremel-Drill Shutter/Flash Speed Test(s)= This image from an S2 IS PowerShot camera was submitted to test the true speed of the new ultra-shutter-speeds. However flash was used, so it is a better indicator of the flash-duration than shutter speed. What is important here to consider is that the camera's own flash synced with this high-shutter speed, extinguishing all ambient light from ruining the exposure and providing for optimum detail. Also, as the calculations will show, revealing some surprising results. image:high_speed_shutter_test.jpg :(Contributor: "dudleydocker" from this discussion. Calculated Tv exposure was 1/8000, f3.5, at ISO 400) A smaller well-defined highlight at the very edge of the disc's abrasive, one with easily discernible starting and stopping points, was used to better measure the angle of rotation. This way the measurement wouldn't also be thrown off by the diameter of that highlight that moved during the exposure. Dremel Drill: 30,000 rpm = 500 rotations per second = 1 revolution every 1/500th second. Motion blur: 2.97 degrees, let's safely round that to 3 degrees = 1/120th of a revolution. This means that 120 units of measure can fit into a 1/500th of a second rotation. 500 x 120 = 60,000 The highlight's motion blur occurred during an exposure of 1/60,000th of a SECOND! The image above is not just of a 1/8,000th nor even a 1/10,000th of a second exposure, but of 1/60,000th of a second effective shutter-speed. Xenon flash units usually control their flash output by duration rather than output level. So when used on the dimmest setting these cameras are shortening the flash output to 1/60,000th of as second. How's that for high-speed flash-sync photography? I have since been investigating other uses of high-speed flash on the internet, and ran across this little tid-bit, when someone was enquiring about photographing shot-gun spread-patterns from the side, and how fast of a flash would be needed. This reply is rather appropriate for this photo. "Consider a Dremel grinder, rotating 30,000 RPM, with a disk that is one inch diameter. 3.14 inches circumference 30,000 times per second is 94,200 inches per second at the rim, or 7850 feet per second (faster than a speeding bullet)." I guess this means that if you wanted to, and had a way to sync your camera to a rifle shot, you could get one of those spectacular images of a bullet ripping through a playing-card, width-wise.